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Influencing Lives by Teaching Ballet

The task can’t be taken lightly

Ballet teachers have a unique opportunity to instill self confidence and to encourage creative expression in their ballet students. The task should never be taken lightly, and it’s important for parents of young children to fully investigate the qualifications of their child’s prospective teachers before beginning lessons. There are two sides of this coin: it can be looked at from the teacher’s point of view as well as from the parent’s point of view. This post will focus on the teacher, and how his or her classroom environment can affect the development of a child. In general, all teachers are aware of the influence they may have over impressionable children, but I believe that a ballet teacher’s influence is ever so slightly different than that of a school teacher’s. The ballet class is a place where the child is forced to look upon their bodies in a mirror and scrutinize that reflection. How much emphasis is placed on that image should be relative to the age of the student.

Creative movement and pre-ballet students

Ideally, children who begin pre-ballet or creative movement at around four years of age will not need to think too much about technique. At this stage, instilling a joy of movement is vital. Teaching musicality and approaches to moving creatively will be the main focus. Simple stretching exercises in the guise of games will be introduced. This is a very special age and quite fun to teach. Having colorful and flowing scarves, various types of musical instruments, and other props in your arsenal helps keep a child of this age engaged. Experimenting without using particular steps, but with movements that are heavy, soft, light, sharp, dull, long, short, or what have you will enable them to express themselves using their bodies in new ways. Later, when more formal technique is introduced, they will be more open to trying new things if they’ve been given a chance to experiment on their own a bit first.

Pre-teen and teenage students

Skipping ahead now to the pre-teen and teenage years, I think it’s especially important for a teacher to understand what is happening developmentally, emotionally, and intellectually to these students. This is a critical age (between 11 and 15) where they are coming into their own selves, learning how they are the same and different from their peers, and beginning to shape who they will be as adults. This is a fascinating article about the growth of the brain in these formative years, and how physical activity can have an effect on that growth.

Socially, we know that adolescents are going through a difficult time at this stage. They are morphing out of the childhood phase and moving into the adult phase, having to navigate their way sometimes alone and sometimes with the help of peers, and sometimes they are lucky enough to have the loving guidance of a teacher helping them along this new territory. I think ballet teachers could easily forget this is happening. I’m not saying that we should relax our standards by any means; I think the fact that there are clear expectations in a ballet class (see my post on ballet etiquette) can be comforting to a pre-teen. Here is a place they can come and know exactly how to behave. I’m just saying that it’s important for teachers to be aware of what these kids are going through developmentally at this stage in their lives.

One way we can effect a positive influence on pre-teens through ballet is by offering plenty of praise when they get things right. At this age students should already understand that getting a correction is not a criticism for them to take personally and feel badly about. They should know that getting a correction means they are worthy of the attention of the teacher and it’s a means to improve their technique. For a teacher, I think once a correction has been given to a student it is of vital importance to note when that student incorporates it and makes the adjustment. It’s a two-part thing here: give a correction, and watch to see (and praise) when the correction has been made in the future by that same student. This sort of confirmation encourages the student to seek corrections, even when not given to them directly, and implement the improvements in their technique because they know that the effort will be noticed.

I’m not really finished with my thoughts on the powerful influence a ballet teacher can have on his or her students, but this is enough for one post. Any other thoughts from other teachers out there? I plan to write more in detail about how we can work with kids at various stages of their training to get the most out of them, avoid burn out, and build their self esteem right along with their technique. Even for those who study ballet for a year and never come back, it can have a positive influence on their lives.

Classical Ballet: Combinations for Ten Complete Advanced Classes

by Tamara Stanwood, 2009

 

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Infusing Fun into Ballet Barre

Infusing Fun into Ballet Barre Combinations

There are many things that can be considered in order to make ballet barre exercises more interesting and beneficial to your students. In my last post, Anatomy of a Ballet Combination, I did mention that using épaulement (shouldering, meaning arm and head movements) is important to include in combinations at the barre so the dancers don’t look uncomfortable dancing in the center. Since I wrote that post I’ve thought of more things to add that can make your barre combinations really dance!

Switch Things Around

Change feet. It’s easy to get caught in the en croix crutch. One tendu en croix, one degagé en croix, etc. But en croix gets boring, and the pattern doesn’t make the dancer use their minds as well as their bodies. I love combinations that shift weight and change feet. For example, you could do a tendu combination and have the pattern be front, side, (change leg) – inside leg front, (change leg again) – back. Or you could do front, inside leg back, outside leg side, and inside leg side, and then reverse.

Along these same lines, you can work the outside leg and turn the body ¼ away from the barre to work in éffacé devant, or ¼ into the barre for croisé devant. The same is true for working to the back. You can also change directions entirely, moving the body to face the barre at one point in the combination, perhaps moving through promenade in attitude or arabesque, and finishing on the second side where you’re ready to begin everything on that side.

Do Turns at the Barre

One of my favorites was always pirouettes at the barre. At first this is tricky because you’re afraid you’re going to hit your knee on the barre, so it may be helpful to begin with the foot on the ankle or calf rather than at the knee at first. Becoming comfortable doing pirouettes at the barre makes doing them in the center infinitely easier. It’s like having a permanent partner right there; one that you know will be there when you come around at the end of the turn. You can add pirouettes to practically any barre exercise, but I think it makes more sense to do this toward the middle to end of barre rather than at the very beginning.

Fouetté turns are commonly done at the barre during rond de jambe en l’air exercises. You can also do pirouettes en dehors or en dedans during degagés, rond de jambe, frappé, or grand battement. Flic flacs are great for adding turns during frappé. And in pointe class, doing turns at the barre really helps build a dancer’s confidence before moving into the center.

Vary the ways you turn to the second side

One last thought and I’ll close this post. If you’re short on time and want to move from one side of the barre to the next without stopping in between sides, there are tons of ways to make the transition to the other side more fun. You can do tombé pas de bourrée to 5th position away from the barre and still facing the side you were working on, then detourné ½ turn toward the back leg, and tombé pas de bourrée to 5th position on the other side to finish at the barre, ready to begin the second side.

And another plug for my new book! Classical Ballet: Combinations for Ten Complete Advanced Classes.

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Anatomy of a Ballet Combination

DNA particles

Did you ever have to diagram sentences when you were in school?  I remember doing that, and realizing that every sentence has certain parts that are required and some that just add variety and interest.  The same is true of a ballet combination.  Every class needs to progress through pliés, tendus, degagés, rond de jambe, grand battement, and every combination has parts that should be included or can be added to make it more interesting.  We shouldn’t only work on our artistry during rehearsal and performance.  Artistry begins in the classroom, and by adding dimension to your combinations you allow your students to experiment and grow.  A good rule of thumb for most combinations is to keep it at an even number of phrases, so you’d have two sets of eight, four sets of eight, or eight sets of eight, for example.  This simply makes sure you finish a combination at the end of a phrase rather than in the middle.

Change tempos

Just as the progression of exercises at the barre generally alternate between slow and fast tempos to give the muscles a chance to stretch before contracting quickly again, it’s possible to design your combinations in this way, too.  I loved taking classes from teachers who knew how to add stretching to a fast degagé combination, or who added some double time rond de jambes in a rond de jambe a terre combination.  One simple way of incorporating this into your combinations is to take the steps at a slower pace the first time through, and without changing the tempo of the music, move the steps into double time so they are twice as fast.  You can do this also by turning a slow tendu combination into a faster degagé combination, or a faster degagé combination into a slower grand battement combination.

Use epaulement and give each combination a goal

Another thing to remember when constructing your combinations is to use epaulement, or shouldering (head and arms).  It’s important to use the arms at the barre so that when dancers move into the center they don’t look stiff and uncomfortable using their arms and head.  Each combination can have a goal that contributes to the overall goal of that class.  You may decide to devote a whole class on attitude.  You can balance in attitude at the barre, practice embôité turns or attitude turns in the center, practice renversé, grand jeté with bent back leg.  In a class like this you may do balançoire at the barre in attitude.  A good teacher can take a specific movement and make a whole class out of it.  Adding a balance to the end of a barre combination is always a good way to finish, because it allows the dancer time to stop and pull everything together for a moment before moving on to the next step or combination.

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Expressing Emotion in Dance

We’ve all seen performances that have moved us…ones where the dancers transported us until we truly believed their plight or believed in their love. I performed in my very first pas de deux in a piece of student choreography at Indiana University. The piece was set to music by Rachmaninoff, and I felt transported, personally. The movements felt wonderfully full of abandon and we looked into each other’s eyes—everyone said it was great.

Well, we had a cast party after the performance where we watched the video. None of what I felt inside translated into what the audience saw. It was embarrassing because everyone was watching me to see my reaction, and all I could do was burst into tears and run from the room. I’m sure my partner wasn’t happy about that, because he felt pretty good about it himself, but for me it was all wrong. It wasn’t anything like I imagined it to be. I looked like a clumsy first year pointe student trying to do something way beyond her means. Of course, my facial expressions couldn’t be seen, and what I was feeling inside was hidden away from everyone but myself—although even I couldn’t see that when viewed from the audience’s perspective!

I’ve had teachers who said we need to dance with our souls. But how, exactly, do we do that? My father taught speech in high school and I was fortunate enough to take his class one year. He said that when you’re nervous, you tend to do certain things that give away the fact that you’re nervous. Some people might play with their hair, or move their hands a certain way, or swallow loudly. He taught us that it’s perfectly okay to be nervous, as long as we don’t let anyone know that we are nervous. So, we practiced keeping our hands behind the lecturn if our bad habit was something we did with our hands while we gave a speech.

I think that can translate into our performing as well, in that we can keep from doing something that gives away our nerves and still be nervous without anyone guessing. When I was in graduate school I was doing the Black Swan pas de deux with my partner, and every night of tech week I had a friend videotape our performance. I’d go home and watch the tape and critically pull it apart frame by frame until I was happy with what I was seeing. There were many subtle things that I was surprised to see: my hands were not sharp enough where I felt that they were sharper, or the place where I walked backwards away from my partner, leading him on seductively and maliciously didn’t look malicious in the least. I found over the course of the week and watching the video every night after rehearsal that if I lowered my chin in that spot the demeanor came across much more effectively than when I just used my eyes. Everything we do on stage must be magnified in order to come across to the audience. This is, of course, why we wear heavier makeup, wear false eyelashes and extend our eyeliner to make our eyes appear larger.

The same is true for emotion. It isn’t enough to feel the emotion inside. We have to learn to project emotion, which can actually be accomplished without actually feeling the emotion! It is possible, I think, to make the audience believe you are a distraught Juliet by the way you move your body alone. I’m interested in hearing from other dancers and performers, too. How do you express emotion on stage?

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